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Matthew Valle, Kevin O’Mara and Arthur Cassill publish article in the Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences

An article written by Matt Valle, professor of management, Kevin O'Mara, professor of management, and Art Cassill, the Wesley R. Elingburg Professor of Accounting, has been published in Volume 24, Issue 3 (2012) of the Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences.

The article, “Staking out the Middle Ground in Undergraduate Business Education,” proposes a hybrid model of educational instruction for business undergraduate students that blends pedagogical (“child-leading”) and andragogical (“man-leading”) approaches to instruction. This new model develops an integrated framework that guides the choice of instructional methods, tools and environments for a wide variety of courses and curricula in order to build knowledge and skills in the accounting and business disciplines. The ultimate goal of this blended approach to undergraduate business education is to transform the personal epistemologies of students by focusing their energies on those engaged learning activities that promote learning and retention.

This effort is part of an on-going research stream by this group of researchers in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. Among other research foci, this group is interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of Elon’s distinctive focus on active and experiential education. Building on the Elon Commitment themes of “Attaining the highest levels of achievement across our academic programs” and “Supporting a world-class faculty and staff,” this research contributes to the evolution of higher education through peer-reviewed publication and deepens the commitment to developing quality undergraduate programs in the business disciplines. This research is intended to exemplify the engagement of Love School of Business faculty in activities that advance the teacher-scholar model, with the goal of enriching our classrooms while seeking to bring about positive change in the world.

Elon's AACSB-accredited undergraduate business program has earned a top-50 national ranking (#43 overall) in the 2012 Bloomberg Businessweek rankings. The only other North Carolina undergraduate business schools ranked in the top 50 were the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (#10) and Wake Forest University (#19). Elon's #43 undergraduate ranking follows last November's #1 national ranking by Bloomberg Businessweek of Elon's part-time MBA program.